75% done!!

On Saturday the 5th, I organized the first workday of the project. We arrived at 9:00 in the morning and began work on the cold ground near the sign. It was quite a chilly day. My brother said he was glad to be there, but hoped that next time I would choose a workday that wasn't on the coldest day of winter yet. Lol. My father and I agreed the cold was building character.

The workday lasted for the 3 hours and, in that time, we planted all the bushes, put in fertile soil, and placed pine straw down. I am very happy with how the landscaping turned out. We should be ordering the tables soon and they should be here in time for the next workday. Very good news! Praying for God to allow us to get a deal on the tables. Trusting him to provide.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

His Hand at Work

God is definitely blessing this project and I am blown away. Since last week, the responce has been enormous. Right now the project fundraising is at $1445.65. I have over 6 people who have promised to contribute. I have a lady at scouts to has yet to give me $50 and another man has pledge $25. One of the most awesome things yet is the fact that two of my dear friends have told me to come to them if I get toward the end of the project and need some money still. They said they would cover it. That is two safety nets!!

All this is not including the fact that I just handed out 38 fundraising letters today to my church body. If all of them were to donate just $25, I would have almost another $1000 to add to my $15 hundred. I am going to use this money to expand the project. Buy more picnic tables possibly or maybe benches. This would allow me to get more tables. They are quite expensive because of their gavanized steel (indestructable) frames and that would allow for more!!

On top of this, a landscaper at my church is allowing me to piggyback my plant order on top of one of his projects. This will allow him to get the plants at cost for me. He is also going to help by walking me through the plant choice, marking out, electrical work, and general tricks of the trade. He also will be letting me use some of the topsoil that will be delievered in by dumptruck. Everything is coming together perfectly beyond logical explanation. God's hand is evident throughout this project.

Math.... The Intangible Delight

I have been getting all the fundraising money balanced for the project. I enjoy math... sometimes. Unfortunately this is not one of those times. I have a very large and complex excel spreadsheet that I have created for the entire project. I didn't know how to do excel when I began... now I am the "Supreme Dictator of Excel". Just kidding...

My sheet has everything recorded: prices for all supplies bought and what is paid for and not, hours worked and by whom, donations, card production cost, net profit of the cards... basically ALOT. I am looking at the benefits though: I have learned excel, learned to manage money, and start my own business.

Anyway, I am very encouraged by what I see in the numbers. Right now the project has gained $1117.45 in net profit. !!!!!!!!! That is very encouraging. It has been less than 3 weeks since I started and this amount will help me move into Phase 2: the project. Still need about $400 to cover all the fees but, that shouldn't be to much of a worry. Thanks to everyone who has been so generous.

Great News!!!

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up. It has been an interesting two weeks. Stuff is going great, but nothing is "write this on the blog immediately" kind of material. So I will give you the big picture which might be able to capture some of my joy.

Over the past few weeks, orders and donations have been coming in steadily. I have had at least one donation/order come in for the last 3 days. Right now the fundraising is at at most $800 of net gain. That is subtracting out the expenses of buying supplies.

I have also made a change in how i am doing my cards. I am printing my own cards now. It is almost 50% cheaper than getting them printed at the print shop. At home, each card costs $0.10 to print while printing at the shop costs $0.17. So this good news. I got a deal on print cartriges so I am ready to go.

I have had a great response from everyone I have asked to help. One of my teachers who gave me tutoring for the ACT is donating the tutoring money toward buying cards. One of the men at my church is a landscaper and he is helping me pick out the right plants for the project. (The ones i was planning on using have done poorly because the rain cause them to get diseases.) He even created a virtual picture of what the finished product will look like!!

I am very excited. Thank you to everyone who is helping with the fundraising and praying for the project. God is doing great things.

Working at the Carwash Babe!!!!

On Saturday,  a whole bunch of my friends and I held a carwash... in the wet... in the cold... on a cloudly day. I found out who my friend are... they were the ones who were shivering and freezing with me. Good thing, i had first aid training on hypothermia. Jk...

We washed a total of about 15 cars in all... overcoming the disadvantage of being behind the store and not easily seen. We did extremely well for a cloudy day in the Fall. In all, we earned $204.05. Don't forget that five cents... that is 0.024% of the total amount!

It all really worked out... I was kinda discouraged in the beginning about the amount of cars that were coming, but later realized  that despite the amount of cars, we did very well. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me and helped me get it all organized. In particular, i want to thank one of the Venturing girls who came when she was not feeling very good and her brother who waved the sign in front of the store for the entire 3 hours.

Us working at the carwash... (notice that the scout in blue is shooting the one with a black coat on with the hose.)

This Scout held the sign for 3 hours straight in front of the store!

Carwashing with coats in the cold...

I am very excited. In all, the fundraising is at $300 of the needed $1500... 1/5 of the way there!

DANGER DANGER!!!

Yesterday was very scary. Almost had a big problem, but all is well now. I went to pick up the cards from the printers and they weren't right. The frog and sunflower designs were printed on the cards in a landscape format which made design very small... too much white space! The Christmas cards had a small thing which was my fault... that thing didn't ruin it, just something to change next time.

I was not very happy considering that I had 200 cards that were not the quality product that I was looking for to represent what I was making. To get another set printed and made to use instead of the original 200 would put me almost $150 under. It was kinda... well... frustrating.

Getting Involved is Simple and Easy

So what is this project all about? What am I doing?

The project I have planned includes building 3 picnic tables and landscaping the entry sign of my church. The estimated cost involved for both of these projects is $1,500.

How am going about raise that much money? I am selling notecards with designs I personally have draw. The cards are 5”x 7” and include envelopes. A set of ten cards and envelopes is provided for a donation of $25. All proceeds go to funding the project. There are three designs for the cards as seen below.

Behind the Scenes

Still working on sending out the fundraising letters. That is not so hard in of itself, but it can be a little complicated and overwhelming when you are juggling a list of contacts, and printing out a four piece letter including: a personal letter, order form, a return letter for order forms and the outer letter. Its not too bad. I have gotten a system going and I can get several letters together in a decent amount of time.

I handed out 26 letters today. One person gave me a immediate response. I guess i officially have my first customer (...or something like that). I am still working on getting the carwash organized. I think it will be fine. I already have a list of Scouts who are interested in helping. Everything is going according to plan.

I will include a letter and order form in the next blog so that anyone can contribute to this project if they are interested.

Project Takes Wing

This is Taylor. Decided that creating blog for my Eagle Project might be an interesting way to let everyone see how it is going. At the moment, all is going well. Had a very successful day.

Today school was out for Parent/Teacher Conferences. I took advantage of the free time and decided to get everything started for the project. So far I have created a mailing list, finalized my Fundraising letter and gotten the needed supplies to start fundraising.

My fundraising is a two part project. First, I am selling 10 cards I designed for a donation of $25. Second, I am going to hold a carwash at a local store. (Talked to the manager today. Hoping that Saturday will work out. Weather looks promising so far.)

The project itself is divided into two minor projects: creating picnic tables and landscaping the church sign. The estimated cost for the two is around $1500. I am not too worried about raising that amount, but it will take some work.

I am excited. Everything seems to going well.